The Drinking Tree — Tommy Lee Davis

When a notorious but popular Senator is murdered in his store on the banks of the Calcasieu River, the small town of Oakdale becomes the focus of Louisiana politics, the Dixie Mafia, Las Vegas, the FBI and the national media. As Chief Deputy Ronnie Waters fights to untangle the snarl of murder, sex, bondage and drugs in his parish, his dearest friend Cecilia Bonier struggles against the crushing shackles of her mystifying heritage. Chicago TRIBUNE reporter Brett Mullin endears himself to Cecilia and to the Redbones, the mystery people who still inhabit the hills and rivers of western Louisiana.A sort of spell land, the region is permeated by a sense of the inexplicable. Even today, anyone who visits this lovely and captivating place sooner or later is touched by its mystery, the allure and magnificent aura almost impossible to describe. Something elusive seems to lurk in the wind, in the ripple of the river, and in the moss whispering secrets to the cypress. At once a passionate and compelling love story and an unabashed forum of relationships, THE DRINKING TREE portrays racial reconciliation from an unusual perspective that illuminates the human stage with a laser. In this complex tale of romance, mystery, anguish and hope, Louisiana native Tommy Lee Davis proves to be a splendid storyteller and a sensitive raconteur of the vagaries of the heart.